Posted on 01/31/2014 5:51:52 AM PST by raccoonradio
The bank has sued to foreclose. The city’s philanthropic groups, with names like Mellon and Heinz, have withdrawn support. The $42 million August Wilson Center for African American Culture, a bow-front building inspired by a Swahili sailing ship, is high and dry.
Named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who found a street-savvy poetry in the lives of poor Pittsburgh blacks, the culture center’s plight has been especially painful for those who had hoped it would enshrine the music, art and literature of the urban world he knew.
Instead, it appears to be a victim of mismanagement by its senior staff and board of directors, who borrowed to build a grand palace of culture, but failed to find a wide enough audience and donor base in the hometown of Wilson, whose plays are mostly set in the Hill District just blocks away.
... a state judge handed control of the cultural center to a conservator, usurping its board in a final effort to avoid liquidation. The bank that holds the mortgage, which has gone unpaid for months, is advancing $25,000 to pay the conservator. The culture center is flat broke.
Mark Clayton Southers, a former director of its theater program, said the Wilson center struggled to find an audience among the people Wilson portrayed: working-class blacks, many of whom feel unwelcome downtown with its skyscrapers and largely white-owned businesses, he added.
“You can’t build it and they will come,” Mr. Southers said. “Not when you’re trying to work with a community that is not traditional theatergoers or cultural consumers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I don’t know if Warhol could fill that building, the space they have currently is much smaller I believe, and frankly you can tell they struggle to fill it with anything meaningful... I have no doubt the could just put more crap up to fill the space, but I don’t think it would make it any more relevant.
Years ago, I saw one of his plays in New York. “The 5th of July”. It was a chance to see a play and I really did not know who wrote it or what the topic was. To me the play made no sense at all. Almost ruined my visit..
and that, i believe, was the case for the Central Valley city i lived in... there were not enough people interested in a downtown theatre when they have access to many theatres in nearby big cities... which is where a lot of the townspeople were from to begin with...
Oops...wife just said that it was another “Wilson”, not August. Never mind.
That’s Lanford Wilson, not August. Sheesh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXh-gsZmuuo
“You cheat! Because you are black!”
“What did you say?”
“You’re black! I’m red! You moved the wrong checker!”
I remember one line where an old man talks about a sexy girl. “She’s got great pins. I could bowl 300 in that alley!”
He was a black play writer who hated white people and blamed honkeys for everything.
He is acclaimed here as a great asset to the city. But, seeing how little that place is used, not that great.
Although not a playwright, there's at least one politician in Dallas who fits that description: John Wiley Price.
African American Culture
Oxymoron?
(ducking for cover)
“Show him what he did to the rest of your body”!
Remember that?
if they wanted to show real black culture, they would have single mothers cashing welfare checks and the men drinking 40s of Ole English at 9 AM
( digs a foxhole)
Are there a Eugene O'Neill/Thornton Wilder/Tennessee Williams Museums? I doubt I'd visit those as well as August Wilson's. Why did anybody believe people would go to a museum for a little-known playwright? Unless they thought they could make money out of it.
I directed a touring company production of that in the late 80's. Lanford Wilson stopped in a few times to watch rehearsals.
That is one ugly building!
I can guess they’re hoping for a rich benefactor to swoop in and save them.
&&&
Our bill for Moochelle’s HI birthday vacation could have saved them.
August Wilson didn't write it. Lanford Wilson did.
Why do I get the feeling that "benefactor" will be the US Taxpayer?
The bankruptcy trustee conducted an audit and submitted a report to the court saying that the center is NON-VIABLE.
She recommended selling off the building and all assets.
That will never happen because it would be RAAAAAAACIST.
We’ll end up shoveling more hard-earned tax dollars into this hole.
Yes, there’s an excellent center dedicated to Eugene O’Neill in his childhood home of New London, CT. I think Thornton Wilder does as well but not sure about Williams.
I’m not sure I think this large building wasn’t a huge mistake. That being said, August Wilson was a brilliant American playwright who wrote about Pittsburgh almost exclusively. He certainly deserved to have a center (small, and if popular, growing into a new one) dedicated to readings and productions. The Eugene O’Neill Center started small (in his tiny home) and grew and grew.
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